


eros

by enemeriad



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Nostalgia, Then and Now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:41:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21704659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enemeriad/pseuds/enemeriad
Summary: People bring it up all the time. They love to say: ‘all those years?! Finally’ or variations on a theme. There are quips from the both of you in the beginning but eventually you just wonder if they truly don’t grasp what the two of you have.
Relationships: Donna Paulsen/Harvey Specter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36





	eros

They don’t tell stories like this, the angst in wanting. The salty dew that pools with memories of twelve years. He has been your whole life, your whole world this entire time and you are not even sure you knew what validation would taste like.

This is cosmic reciprocity of the direst kind. But when he takes you in his arms, places a soft, silent promise at your throat you will know that for all your good deeds, you could never have deserved this kind of happiness.

Explaining to people that it just _is_ now, is impossible and so you don’t. You don’t _tell anyone_ in the classical sense. Instead, from the aberrant giddiness that accompanies you now, people just guess. Or assume. Considering people have spent the better part of a decade assuming, this only confirms the rumours. Or, recycles them.

You can’t decide if you delight or despise in the look of shock and confusion that appears on acquaintances faces when Harvey is overly intimate in public, or your hand rests on his thigh when you lean into him to whisper. There is still something within you that doesn’t know how to take this – this thing, your thing – into the light.

For years, _for decades,_ yours has been a kind of love. Now, _now_ it is fundamentally a different kind. It is better, yes, brighter too. But it also now not _yours_ anymore. It is his and it is shared in a way that makes it so much more dimensional but also somehow _less._

It is ridiculous – you know this, you have said: ‘it is ridiculous’ but you can’t help but miss, sometimes, the ways in which it was _different_ before.

Yes, it is better now – brighter, bigger, bolder. It is shared and wonderful and it is co-kindled. But you do – miss the before. Because without it there would be no now and you are too conscious of how nearly there was no _now_ not to be grateful for the before.

It is hard to explain _how_ you could love him this much. You thought you loved to the brim before. You genuinely thought that it was not possible to know all of someone’s flaws, all of their virtues too and to love them any more than you already did. No one told you that there is no brim to this kind of cup.

It exists on some other plane of existence and no matter how much you thought you loved him before, it is so much bolder now. 

Sometimes (ok, always) you put your hand on him. Somewhere you would never have been allowed to place it before and he will always, _always come_ to meet you there. Place his hand atop yours as if to say ‘thank god you’re back’.

You don’t know if he knows that the gesture makes your heart stop, every single time. You don’t know if he knows that every time you place your hand on his you expect to wake up from the dream. You don’t know if he knows that every time you place your hand on his – for a second, a moment – a heartbeat, you wonder if _this_ time he won’t come to join you. But he does.

You know that the telling that you love someone, the act of asking them to marry you is likely – to other people – more indicative of their commitment to you. But to you, it is this: that every time you reach for him, he reaches back. And to you, after everything you have seen of the man, of everything you have seen him shy away from, you don’t think you could explain the depth with which you love him for this single act of love.

It does occur to you that Manhattan has a disproportionate number of women who are either making voodoo dolls in your honour or deifying you for what you have managed to emotionally extricate from Harvey. Either way, you are not entirely sure that leaving Manhattan for _all_ of the excellent reasons that you and Harvey decided were good reasons to leave Manhattan did not, in _any_ way omit _this_ particular adieu.

 _Fuck them,_ you think somewhat fondly.

People bring it up _all the time._ They love to say: ‘all those years?! Finally’ or variations on a theme. There are quips from the both of you in the beginning but eventually, you just wonder if they truly don’t grasp what the two of you have.

How do you explain to them that for 12 years you were each other’s rocks? That when the chips were down – and for so many years, they were relentlessly being pushed down – you were there for each other? Unwavering, without question? How do you truly explain to someone that ‘we love each other’ does not even _begin_ to encompass the depth of loyalty, consideration and respect that two of you have for each other?

Partners: too pithy, couple: generic.

Really, it would be a matter of detailing every moment. Every fight. Every Hardman and Tanner. Every almost. Every single time you wanted to yell and scream at him for being so _obtuse_ or arrogant. Every time he wanted to push you away or ask you to stay but didn’t.

But what are those moments to them but anecdotes? They do not serve to contextualise the lives of two people who weren’t ready for each other.

You always thought that your favourite part would be being in the office but _together._ There was always some thrill – perhaps in the ease with which you could conjure the fantasy – at the mental play-act.

The stapler would feature, naturally.

The file room – always too prosaic – would only be the location of the fury that tips the sexual tension over the edge.

And naturally, his office, it would have to be in his office. Just purely because it is so _meaningful._

And you only let yourself do this once or twice a year but even for that brief second or two that your mind played tricks on you, it would be a _good_ second or two.

So all of the office romance crap pales abysmally in comparison to everything else.

You had never let yourself think about what waking up and having breakfast together would be like. The car ride _into_ work. Brunch on the weekend in Soho. Planning a destination for New Year's Eve.

These were the things that perhaps your mind would not let you dwell on because they would be so _painful_ unfulfilled.

But now?

They are your favourite things.

The ease, the simplicity – the absolute and unending _wonderfulness_ of seeing each other in all states of undress, at all hours of the day, in all moods and without any of the pretence that professional decorum mandates.

And so, with your feet in his lap and a book in hand you think that yes, this is your favourite moment. It doesn’t matter that it is a generic Thursday night and you didn’t get your way with the takeaway order (thai, again, ugh).


End file.
